Sunday, 12 February 2012

Out on a rural delivery among the suggestive trees where the glass re-cyclers are full of wine bottles rather than greasy pasta sauce jars, a woman with large spectacles and red lipstick said to me “Isn’t it a glorious day” as she wiped her hands on her pinny. I saw lapwings, fieldfares, a moorhen, a buzzard, three plastic herons and two dozen bottles of Budweiser chilling in the snow by the back door. A receptionist lifted her half-rimmed specs and confided that the security officer is “a right twat” and later, in the bright midday sun, a man with a switched-on light attached to his headband pulled up in a Ford Focus to tell me “Those vans are breeding, there’s another one down there”. Back at the yard, Robbo was singing again; a medley of his improvised lyrics to classic tunes. To the tune of Panic by The Smiths, “Panic on the streets of Sheepridge. Where’s me Giro? Where’s me Giro? Where’s me Giro?” To the theme of Last of the Summer Wine, “I love my job, I need to see a psychiatrist” and to the tune of No Woman, No Cry by Bob Marley, “No money, no beer”.